Ranking each and every Seattle Seahawks NFL draft class

As General Manager John Schneider and the rest of the Seattle Seahawks brain trust prepare for this weekend’s NFL draft, they do so with the reputation as perhaps the best team in the league at finding talent throughout the seven-round process.

Since he came to Seattle in 2010, Schneider has constructed a Super Bowl roster by hitting on top picks while also finding players passed over by every other team in the league during the late rounds. Under Schneider and head coach Pete Carroll’s management, the Hawks are widely believed to be the most talent-laden squad in the NFL — and they have the Lombardi Trophy to prove it.

But have the drafts of the last few seasons been the best in franchise history?

We wanted to find out, so we ranked each and every Seahawks draft class using an algorithm so complicated in cannot be described adequately here. Suffice to say it is the most authoritative ranking in the history of authoritative rankings.

A few notes about our methodology:

The rankings were derived based on percentages of players who panned out in a given year. Thus, the five-person 1997 class could compete with the mammoth 25-player inaugural class of 1976 on equal footing.

Factors included: number of years the player was a primary starter at his position, Pro-Bowl, All-Pro and Hall-of-Fame selections, and measurement of career value provided by data from Pro-Football-Reference.

Later classes have had less time to prove their worth, so an effort was made to extrapolate data from the first few seasons of recent players’ careers and cast it forward.

Not all picks are created equal. Thus, obtaining an impact player in the first round won’t result in as many points as a late-round gem, but a seventh-round bust doesn’t count against a class like a first-or second-round washout would.

Photo: Don Lansu / NFL

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39. 1976

First selection: Steve Niehaus (DT, Notre Dame)

Other notables: Sherman Smith (RB, Miami of Ohio)

The Hawks' first draft wasn't a good one, with Smith (above) the only longtime starter among the 25-man class.

Thomas (above) is one of the best all-around defensive players in the game. Add in Pro-Bowl players in Okung and Chancellor -- plus key contributors in Tate and CB Walter Thurmond -- and you have star power and depth.